Locks and Keys
by EleanorKate
Summary: Another 2 chapter story. Chummy keeps all her memories stored away; trusting only one other to see. NOW COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

"Camilla?" he whispered, standing behind her as she sat on the floor, cross legged and breathing in the warmth of the electric fire. It was gone midnight and Nonnatus was quiet; all except the mouse he had found in the sitting room as he wandered past trying to be as silent as possible in heavy work boots.

Peter had only been back on the streets of Poplar for two days but he still couldn't shake that ethereal displaced feeling that hung around his shoulders of how Sierra Leone felt a million miles away, yet this place – his home - felt so far away - distanced - too. That feeling of not belonging, coupled with the excitement to come as her belly proudly told him, exhausted his bones so wishing to not feel so disjointed and unsettled. They were back home for goodness sake but Peter still couldn't shake the ghost that followed every step. Perhaps things would settle down soon, when they were back in their old routine.

He'd thought she might have been long in bed and he'd intended to fetch a glass of water, go up, slide in beside her and wait for dawn. Instead he found her there; catching a glance of the back of her head as he crept past, stopping and turning back.

"Hello" she whispered quietly; not looking at him, but engrossed in what looked like a shoe box and its contents. Peter couldn't see her face and he would first admit that he was worried. It was an adjustment in itself being back but with everything to come and she _shouldn't_ be awake at this time….

"Are you alright?" he asked, still hesitating beside her wondering what on earth it was she had found to scatter across the floor and all over the carpet. Whatever it was seemed to be it was the content of the bruised and battered shoe box; something he had never seen before and, as much as bed was calling him, he was also a little intrigued.

"Yes, perfectly" Chummy replied, still not looking up, but turning over a piece of paper and carefully studying the writing upon it. Peter frowned and decided to sit down, parallel to the pile she had been creating, seeing finally it looked like a birth certificate. Hers to be exact as he saw her rather convoluted name that she had, he might add, gleefully abandoned, written in perfect script.

He cast his eye over the rest of the ephemera and leant across placing a hand on hers to gain her attention. It took a few seconds for her to realise and Chummy slowly raised her head to him and he could not easily be convinced she had not been crying after all.

"What's all this?" he asked quietly, picking up a small silver box.

"Thinks I need to think about" she responded cryptically, taking the little silver pot back off him. "Things I wonder if this baby will want to know about". He saw her place her hand gently on her stomach as she continued to read what was on the paper. Peter looked carefully. Tucked behind it he could now see the green of their marriage certificate too. Now he was altogether unnerved at _why_ she was sifting through all of this in the dead of the night.

"Might there be things I want to know about too?" Peter asked tentatively, having taken in more of the objects scattered over the rug and wondering what she had been doing and perhaps more importantly doing it when she knew she would not be particularly disturbed.

Chummy blinked quickly, not sure whether there were things in that box that she felt she could trust _anyone_ with. He was the closest person to her heart but sometimes she felt he might laugh or think her silly for keeping all the things that she did. Peter watched her as she folded the two pieces of paper in half; leaning across to pick up two blue ticket stubs, running a nail over the edge of one, passing one to him and keeping the other for herself. "These are from the pictures" he began, wondering why she had kept them. Then he realised, his brain purging itself of the memory of where these scraps came from.

"Our first date" she said, seeing him turn one of the tickets over where they had been clipped at the cinema. Good memories were a place to start.

"I remember" he smiled, thinking for a second. "You kept these?"

She nodded carefully. "Remember I asked you for them when you walked back to Nonnatus with me?"

"I do…I think" Peter replied, having the ticket taken back off him and tucked back into the box. To be truthful, he hadn't recalled being asked for them but that may just have been down to the fact that he just didn't want to take his eyes off her, nor see the door to Nonnatus close so her wanting to keep the tickets could easily have passed him by.

"Is that a menu from….?" Peter asked, seeing a piece of card that had lined the side of the box.

"Yes" she replied. Their second date in fact at their now favourite dining rooms where they had been too many times to recall and where they were planning on going for supper tomorrow night.

"You stole it from under a policeman's nose?" he laughed.

She smiled and looked up. "You were too busy being twitchy and nervous to notice" she began, turning the menu the right way up so she could read it. Chummy could even remember what they both ate, or in Peter's case, nearly ate. "I remember you barely touched your supper _and_ nearly tripped over the door mat on the way in".

Peter laughed again quickly. How true that was and even if he was relatively sure he had only just about not made a fool of himself, every recollection was precious. "Yes, I was wasn't I?" It was a rhetorical question and he leant across and brushed a lock of hair that had fallen forward, seeing her shoulders drop as she leant into his warmth. "I don't know what I would have done if Sister Evangelina hadn't said anything. Gone around wondering why I never had the guts to just ask you…gone around seeing you every single day but you were so far out of reach".

"I was never out of reach to you Peter" she replied, quietly, resting, relaxing as she felt his thumb brush her cheekbone. "You never knew how much I wanted you to ask, but I just thought….I think I just thought you could have any girl you liked…." She shook her head, dismissing the negativity that had begun to interfere.

"I liked you" he responded, shifting closer, wanting to find out what else she had, at worst, misappropriated; not thinking the box contained any more than old tickets or scraps that his wife had collected on her way.

"I kept – keep - all our tickets" she started, picking up an envelope and he could see cinema stubs, those theatre tickets that Mum had given him and the ones from the handful of dances they went to with the girls. They were going to be joined by the boat and train tickets from the journey home too as they were all precious. "It's our path. It's the road we've walked on. I thought one day they would give me good memories. Perhaps when I'm senile I'll see these and know me again. Think of all the wonderful things we got up to. Even if we never….if nothing ever came of you and I, I'd still have these to remind me of you".

Peter let her carry on, discretely withdrawing his hand as she raised her head again. It was as though she was trying to process in her mind all these steps she had taken these past two years, wondering how they all fitted together. "Remind me that someone never wanted me to be different from who I really am".

"And never will" Peter responded. To him it was as simple as that. He'd fallen in love with Camilla Fortescue-Cholmondley-Browne with all her quirks and foibles and anxieties that he seemed to be slowly chipping away at. "This didn't come with us to Sierra Leone" Peter said suddenly. He'd have seen it if it had.

"No" Chummy replied, shifting the box an inch closer to her so it was lined neatly against a stripe on the rug. "When we moved out of the married quarters I asked Sister Julienne to look after it for me until we came back. It's travelled with me for miles. School….India…but if it was here one knew one was coming back here to collect it someday; that one _had_ to come back and get it. She gave it me this afternoon after you went to work".

She had become engrossed and had not noticed the time. Nonnatus had been quiet tonight and after the flurry of excitement was over at her return and the rather unexpected delivery in the hallway, they were all going about their daily business once again and she needed something to do although she was not quite sure what it was exactly that led her to ask Sister Julienne precisely at that moment for it back.

"So what else is there?" he asked, curious if this shoebox had travelled with her since school, maybe, what else it might hold; what other memories she was keeping locked away unshared for years. "Can I?" he inquired, wanting to encourage her, picking up a piece of bedraggled navy blue ribbon that was fraying at the edges where it had been cut into a once perfect 'v' shape.

"We used to have to wear navy ribbons in our hair at Roedean". Chummy frowned, taking the ribbon off him and wrapping it around her fingers. "I don't know why I kept that". The ribbon went back into the box again as she picked up a piece of silver, carefully caressing it with the pads of her fingers.

"A tie pin?" he asked, seeing a minute change in her face and a tear escape, knowing all too readily how easy they came these days. "When my grandfather died, Pa said I could take one thing that belonged to him. The boys took books and Bob took an ink pen that used to sit on Grandfather's desk". She turned the pin over with a frown on her face. "He used to wear it all the time". Chummy had been particularly close to her father's father – her Trust Fund said it all really – and she knew it had been precious to him. In fact, she never remembered him not wearing it.

"I never knew my Dad's dad" Peter replied, resisting leaning forward to take up the tie pin so he could look more. "He died in 1917. Dad barely knew him".

"Well at least your Pa will see this one" she smiled, thinking of the tiny life inside here that it seemed was now resting for the night and how much she was absolutely sure that is little one's grandfather would be ever present in his or her life.

"So what else is in there?" he asked. They were still getting to know each properly and he was sure, determinedly sure, that he wanted to know every aspect of her that he could. It was questionable though if she would let him as speedily as he might wish, but everything was always worth a try. Peter saw her consider what was in front of her carefully and pick up a small red velvet pouch with a thin gold cord that she pulled away to produce a crucifix.

"It's ivory", she began. "When we were in Somerset, my uncle – well he was a brother in law of one of my father's sisters – was the Vicar of the parish. They'd been vicars and parish clerks for generations. He gave me that for my 10th birthday. Said he had brought it back from South Africa and I was to take the very best care of it. It always seemed too precious so I never wore it". She didn't have the shoe box at the age of 10; but as she determinedly squirreled away her memories it seemed the perfect home for it.

Peter saw a grave change in her face. "He couldn't bare Mater. He said she sorely tested his faith. Said it in front of her too…I didn't understand it at the time".

He didn't want to say anything about her mother. The three times he had been in close proximity to her were difficult to say the least and sometimes some subjects were simply best left to one side. Still, he couldn't imagine that there was anything in that box that had once belonged to his mother in law or indeed anything that she had furnished her only daughter with so it may, for now, be safe ground to walk upon. She placed the crucifix carefully back into the pouch and it went back into the shoe box.

Her husband wasn't really a religious man and would be the first to admit that a little while ago he had only upped his visits to Church on a Sunday morning should he so happen to fall into her company; even if it was only the walk from the church door to the gate or to Nonnatus if he was lucky. "I have to believe Peter" she continued. "I have to think there is good in the world and the path I am on is truly the right one".

"I hope it is" Peter responded.

Two photographs were pulled out next as she dived away from the subject. One was one he recognised immediately of them standing on the bottom step of Nonnatus, surrounded by the Sisters and the girls. "The most perfect day of my life….." she whispered, passing him one of the only two photographs they had of their wedding day. The other had been framed and would find itself onto the wall at some point in the non too distant future.

"And mine".

The other was of another wedding, taken a good decade or more before theirs if the clothes were anything to go by. Gently she pointed out every single person on the photograph. From her brothers - her brother Will being the groom - to her sisters in law, aunts, uncles, multiple cousins, yet not Chummy herself. Peter took the photograph wondering why she had not pointed out the dark haired teenager seated at the end of the front row in a long dress and a crown of flowers adorning her head. "This is you" he said simply, gently brushing the figure of the person indelibly in black and white before him.

"Yes, that's me" Chummy replied casually, picking up another trinket and dropping it back into the box.

"You are so pretty" he smiled.

"Don't try to sweet-talk me Peter" she responded flatly, refusing to look point blank at the photograph any more and regretting immediately the tone of her voice.

"I'm not" he responded, quite hurt, face crumpling in that element of frustration he always felt when she put herself down. "I said it because it's the truth. Even if you don't like to believe me, I was commenting on what I see Camilla and I see how pretty you are and were".

The photograph was whipped out of his hand back into the box far too speedily and for a moment he admitted defeat; wondering why. There must be a reason she could barely look at herself in photographs but that one had particularly touched a nerve, but he really wondered whether he should press it for fear of upsetting her.

Perhaps he wouldn't for now.


	2. Chapter 2

A birthday card came out next and Peter saw the childish greeting scrawled inside in peacock blue ink.

"Isobel" Chummy began before he could ask. "She was my best friend at Roedean. Well", she paused with a sigh, "until her parents took her back to South America that was. I thought she'd be back for our last year and I remember waiting for her in the dorm, but she never arrived. No-one ever told me why she never came back".

He took the card with its yellowing edges and regarded the simple pencil sketch of the ballerina on the front. "Isobel loved dancing. I couldn't do it to save my own skin" she continued, watching her husband carefully as he inspected the less than exceptionally neat writing inside. "But everything about Belle was joyful; she had such a spring in her step all the time".

Peter read the brief, simple greeting and closed the card carefully. "Well, at least you've found a husband that can't put one foot in front of the other on a dance floor either...…We can share that", he concluded putting the card back into the box himself this time. Peter had tried to lighten the mood but by the look on her face a joke about his two left feet was not going to cut it.

"Peter?" she asked hesitantly, regretting opening up this shoebox now as amongst all those wonderful memories those tickets harboured, there were things in there that only reminded her of events she would rather forget.

He, however, was too close in proximity, heart and mind to turn away, wanting to open up to him but equally so very frightened. It was as though she had allowed - quite deliberately allowed - all these things with their individual memories to pick at her again. It was only that envelope of tickets and that marriage certificate that truly soothed her heart and they were things her hands had fallen subconsciously to. "Has anyone ever left your life and you never knew why? No-one ever explained why to you?"

Apart from the death of his brother, no, Peter could not think of a single person. He shook his head.

"Isobel was my only proper, proper friend. She never wrote and I asked the House Mistress why she wasn't coming back repeatedly, but Matron Clancy didn't know either", Chummy responded, still confused to this day as to why she was suddenly so abandoned.

"Camilla?" Peter asked, shuffling forward, seeing the distress at on her face. "Do you want me to promise you something?"

She was perplexed even more at his question and raised her head to look him in the eye and nodded carefully wanting him to go on. "Wherever your friends have been, this Isobel or that Matron, even your Mum and Dad, I only want to be by your side and I will _always_ be your friend". Peter paused and swallowed, not wanting to qualify himself any more than that as a certain number of thoughts he had always had about her from the day she knocked him down had been decidedly immoral. "Behind everything else I never have thought about you, I will always be on your side". Peter took up her hand, for some reason unable to look her in the eye now himself. "I only hope I'm capable of being what you and our children want me to be".

"My dear Peter" Chummy began, "you are all I want you to be and more besides. One doesn't really realise I can share and tell you things. I wonder if you would get tired of me". Everyone else did after a while…..

"Never…" he responded firmly, lifting the hand within his and she felt his lips press firmly to her skin. "You can share all the good and all the bad and everything in between". It had always struck him she had been judged by all and sundry. He wouldn't be judging her even if she struggled to accept he thought her pretty or beautiful or God forbid attractive; in fact no-one under this roof would pontificate about her.

"I don't want this baby to be me", she noted. That was her worst dread. Praying, hoping this child wouldn't have all of those tendencies and oddities that she felt marred her and he might just be like Peter - calm, collected, straightforward.

Peter shifted round to face her; back to the fire. Mirroring her, he was sitting cross legged, knees touching hers. Cupping her face with his hands, Peter leant across to kiss her. "I'm glad you keep all these". He wasn't for admitting that he had forgotten some of the things she clearly hadn't about their early days together. "The baby can see them when he's bigger and see all the things that are precious to you; all the things that make his mother. You can share them with him and teach him".

"Or her…" she spluttered; never to tell him she had been praying for a boy from the second she realised. She'll have done her duty towards him by providing his son if this little one answered her pleas.

"Or her even" Peter smiled back at her. He looked down for a second and that photograph of the wedding was still there and the question was desperate to be asked so he decided he was going to. "Why don't you like this photograph?"

She paused; wondering whether to tell that particular story as he withdrew his hands and picked up the photograph again. Chummy looked up and saw that pleading look on his face, wonderful blue eyes wide and imploring her to tell him.

Chummy licked her lips slowly and deliberately as she summoned up the courage wondering where to start. "Mater didn't want me to be a bridesmaid" she began, those horrid feelings cascading again as she recalled almost every vile detail. "Emmie asked me the day after she and Will decided to get married and it was the first time I'd been asked to be a bridesmaid to anyone; even my other brothers, so I said yes". Chummy breathed heavily; knowing she hadn't thought at the time, just said yes with a smile and excitement bubbling away inside that she had been asked. "Mater found out naturally and she and Will had such the argument over me. I could hear it through two floors"

"What did she say?" Peter asked, not in his wildest dreams expecting what she was about to recant.

"Mater said I would ruin the photograph" Chummy replied, staring down at her hands, studying every single patch of skin, each vein and crease….

Peter shook his head, incredulous and with his opinion of her mother plummeting by the second, he could only ask why wondering if his ears had deceived him. "She what?"

"All the other bridesmaids were Emmie's nieces" Chummy began to clarify. "Amelia was sixteen too; six inches shorter than me. Petite; elegant and Mater thought she should be chief bridesmaid, not me. Emmie insisted it was me and she fell out with Mater over the wedding arrangements. That's why one doesn't like that photograph. I was in Mater's way again. Disapproved of again".

"But your sister in law stuck up for you and she had her way, didn't she?" he asked, seeing her nod. "And all your decisions now, she has no say whatsoever"

"Doesn't she?" She knew full well that even from a few thousands miles away, some select words in a letter could easily sway her.

"No" Peter replied, shaking his head. "You and I are living under the same roof and you are my wife. When there is a decision to be made, it's what suits _us_ , not her, _us_. I'm on your side Camilla…."

She crumpled her nose. "I know"

"Tell me what else is in here…." he asked not wanting to see her cry. "What about this?" Peter had picked up another piece of paper with a message written on it. Immediately, and to his relief, she smiled, seeing Sister Julienne's handwriting as she unfolded the note.

"It was my first night call here on my own. Ivy Morris and little David. Sister Julienne took the call and wrote the message for me". The relief she felt returning to Nonnatus after that first solo delivery was overwhelming and, on finding the note stuffed in the pocket of her uniform, it seemed almost natural to find the shoebox and store it away. It was a step and challenge she seemed to have overcome. "One realised one could do it….that I'd come to the right place".

She picked up another piece of paper with another message and smiled. "Cynthia's message where you cancelled our fifth date".

"That was hardly my fault" Peter protested, remembering the rushed message, in almost cryptic language relayed to the nurse as his Inspector was breathing down his neck.

"I know" she smiled, knowing full well why she kept it. It was the first time that she hadn't thought it was a sign of doom and felt really rather calm about it that he wasn't about to run off just because one date went by the wayside. "We just had two dates the next week instead".

It would seem that he had taken over choosing the path of their conversation and he picked up something that he recognised at last. "I bought you this".

"I know" Chummy replied, taking the brooch off him running the pad of her finger across it as it twinkled against the firelight. "It was the first thing you bought me".

"You should wear it more often" Peter responded. "In fact" he taking the brooch off her and studiously flicking open the catch. "Wear it now".

She smiled indulgently at him as he messed and fiddled with her cardigan and carefully pushed the pin through the wool, and settled it against her chest; with only a little bit of help from her to fasten it up. "That's better" Peter concluded patting just over her heart where the brooch now lay.

"I don't wear it because it's precious to me". She didn't want to add that it didn't leave the box because she feared snapping the pin or it falling off lost to the streets of Poplar. Chummy knew it wasn't expensive by any means and knew that no way on earth would it be new, but she never found herself caring. It came from him. That was the only thing that mattered.

She saw Peter smile at something he had picked out of the box, raising the thin tattered book to her and opening up the cover. A list greeted him and Peter read on. "India, Dublin, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Vienna, Monaco, Rome, Johannesburg, Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Hawaii, London…." There were too many places she had been to list them all out and many repeated several times over. He noted the last one though. "Sierra Leone" he said seeing the list end with a firm full stop.

Chummy cast her palm over the top of her stomach, over the slight rub of movement she felt there. "When I came here, I tried to remember all the places I'd been in the world". She knew she had a confession to make too. "I wrote that the night we had our first date, when I came back to Nonnatus, wondering if Sierra Leone was going to be the last or whether it might just be London…."

She saw a smile cast its way across his face. "Do you know I thought that too?" Peter replied shyly. "You told me all about Sierra Leone and all of your plans and I saw your face light up". He remembered that far too clear, as she spoke as they made their way through supper, telling him all she wanted to do, all her ideas and the sinking feeling in his stomach that could still reappear when he recalled her enthusiastic words. He knew how much he liked her then and if he had fallen in love with her, he might just have to let her leave for her to be happy.

"I thought Sierra Leone would be it" Chummy responded genuinely, remembering pushing the list back into the shoe box that very night, scolding herself for even thinking he might think more of her than a few dates. "I truly loved our time there, even though it was so hard at times and I am _so glad_ we decided to go, but…" she frowned, carefully thinking through her words. "I was craving being back here….to be in your home"

"Ours…" Peter corrected, taking up the lid of the shoebox. "We move on, move forward. Away from all of these and this" he said, holding up the lid, "goes on and next time you want to go delving into all of this lot, we do it together".

"Time doesn't take away these memories" she whispered quietly.

"I know it doesn't, but we'll have new ones…better ones than bridesmaid's dresses and friends that don't have the grace to tell you where they are…" Peter replied sternly.

"You're always right".

"Not all the time" he replied, deciding enough was enough for tonight as she was obviously tired as he could see her eyes becoming dark and her shoulders slumping. "Come on. It's late. All three of us need to be in bed".

"You'll have to help me" Chummy offered watching him immediately as her husband began placing the content of the box back inside thinking she most probably meant tidying up and it would be quicker if both did it. "No, I mean help me off the floor" Chummy replied dryly.

Peter rolled his eyes. "How many times did I say not to sit on the floor with you in your state?" he asked, teasing her, having made rather quick work of the collection all over the rug and firmly pushing the cardboard lid back down on the stories and tales within.

"Yes, I know" she replied as she watched him stand up and stretch out his hands to her.

"But I know you'll always be there to pick me up, _don't I_?"

FIN


End file.
